Managing Editor's Note: In the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando, I'm brought back to the feelings we had one day after the shootings by Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut, just miles away from my home. How is this carnage possible?

Both shooters [seemed] to suffer from serious mental illness. Both had access to weapons of war, not just hunting or personal protection or sport shooting.

We're an autism-centric news site. But I see a thread connecting the mass shootings that occur all too often and the autism epidemic. Shots. With bullets. Shots. With syringes. Injury. Inaction. Action.

When measles popped up in California, laws were written across the country and many passed (SB277 for instance) despite the fact that no Americans died. Industry profited. With the shootings, it's the opposite. Lawmakers do not rush to pass new laws. Industry profits.

Neither media nor lawmakers are willing look to the pharmaceutical industry for their role in the mental health of our citizens.

Industry is bulletproof.

God bless those killed and wounded and their families and friends. KRS

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"School records show that Mateen was a troubled child and a disciplinary problem going back to the third grade."

And what does society do with troubled children with disciplinary problems? Mind altering drugs - not just a possibility, a probability. Starting at least at age 8, if not earlier. If the report is true.

Linda,
Since the beginning of Ramadan eleven days ago, there have been 88 jihadist attacks around the world, killing 713 people so far. Both Mateen and the jihadi who stabbed and killed the French policeman and his partner the other day, saying that the Euro 2016 was going to be a cemetery, pledged allegiance to Omar Al Baghdadi online before carrying out their murders, as did the San Bernardino killers. The recent ones said they were heeding Adnani's call to kill non-Muslims during this Ramadan. Mateen's father just gave a talk in which he said that all homosexuals must be killed, it is the will of Allah. Since 9/11, 28,605 people have been killed in jihadist attacks. Just this month, in May 2016, there have been 231 attacks, with 1,883 killed, 2,206 injured, 54 suicide blasts, in 31 countries. Thereligonofpeace.com keeps a running tally with links to the news reports of each attack. Most of the jihadi were not taking psychotropic drugs, but rather believed they were carrying out the will of Allah in the manner which has been prescribed for the last 1400 years. Europe would be a Muslim region now had it not been for Charles Martel, Fernando e Isabel, and those who fought at the Gates of Vienna to turn back the Muslim invaders. None of this is new, but the revival of a very old project yet incomplete. Moi, je suis Charlie Martel.

David Burd
…What terribly wrong turn have you Brits done to not have your own English generations be skilled and capable to tend to your own British citizens' health?! (Excepting the idiocy of vaccines of course).

Bales it was Linda.A friend of mine who served many years in Afghanistan said "Larium was available at all meals in a bowl at the "NAF" (Canteen) on all tables it was seen as a cure all for anyone not feeling good.

Come to think of it, this reminds me of the Afghanistan massacre in how cold blooded and crazed the killer reportedly was, like a killing machine he walked into an Afghani camp and shot 17 people. It was Dan who dug up evidence that the man was likely on Lariam that can cause homicidal psychosis. That was never reported in the media and I think he is serving a long prison sentence.

I thought I remember that the soldier's name is Robert Hale, but nothing comes up on Google about the event or him, at least not on the first search page.

Hi Gary,
You know how Dan is always saying Occam's Razor. Well, in this case the simplest explanation to me is that the FBI is behind this. I know, crazy.

Lev,
They've got a nice story that doesn't tie back to anyone and the shooter is dead. I heard regulars from that club on the radio saying they never saw the guy in there, ever, and that if he was ever there, they would definitely have seen him. He was supposedly bipolar, homosexual and homophobic. Nothing in the reports about medication but if there was a diagnosis of manic depressive illness, there was definitely at least a prescription whether he took medication or not. Where is the doctor who diagnosed him? From the outset, it all seemed like a tall tale to me. But who knows. Referring in my mind to the things I know about that are reported in the news - the usual is short on facts and long on filler based on someone's agenda.

Sorry, but it looks pretty clear that the shooter Omar Mateen was GAY himself. Was known to the community and was a regular at the club. Looked for dates on gay apps.

This was a gay-on-gay killing all the way. Repressed sexual urges can explode. Clearly that's what happened here. The radical Islam angle is WAY overblown here, and contributory probably just for repressing this guy'S sexual urges, THAT HE COULD NOT RECONCILE WITH HIS CULTURE.

Of course, the official story doesn't add up, either. Where is the nightclub camera footage? Where are the cellphone clips from the survivors? What the hell did the police do for 3 whole friggin' hours while he was "supposedly" shooting up the place?

Linda 1: I think you're on to something. A few months ago there was an article in the New Yorker about FBI "counterintelligence" operations, begun after 9/11. They recruit "informants," sometimes people they've investigated, sometimes people just looking to make a buck, sometimes stray detritus on the margins of existence. They pay these people very well to infiltrate and ingratiate themselves among suspect populations, such as those who are active in mosques. It is often the informant who invents a crime, and promotes it among those otherwise disaffected but heretofore law-abiding. The idea being that the FBI will gather sufficient evidence for a conviction, then swoop in an make arrests before it goes too far. Apparently Florida has one of the most active CI units in the nation. The man who perpetrated this was well known to the FBI, and apparently to some of their informants. Could this have been a sting gone awry? Wouldn't surprise me one bit. We will never know. The government keeps its secrets well.

I find it hard to look at Frank Bruni all over the media talking about the Orlando massacres. He apparently is gay and has a great and very natural sympathy for the victims of this horrific crime. But his name is linked in my mind to his previous, ridiculing articles about "Vaccine Lunacy" where he really bashes parents who question vaccine safety or who have had terrible experiences. He doesn't have one second to spare for their issues. He seems to view them as a group of absurd idiots who don't deserve any media attention at all. Their questions are to be immediately dismissed without any investigation needed. It seems to me like he is saying that one group, his group, deserves the utmost respect (they do) and another minority, none at all. Not cool in my opinion and he is not as smart as he thinks he is, even though he has a NYT column with which to burnish his self-esteem.

In the 50's and 60's we were taught in school that America is a melting pot. What does that mean now? No more melting?

Obama said the Orlando shooter was acting alone - had no terrorist affiliation that he was working with. Reportedly a sick man, that all fits with the possibility that he was covertly working with or being led by authorities here. Sorry. It is well known that the FBI runs sting operations where they goad people into terrorist behavior and then are supposed to stop them just short of acting and arresting them. Was this a sting operation that went too far?

Aye, as the saying goes in Scotland ““We’re A’ Jock Thompson’s Bairns!”That’s the way Robert Burns, poet laureate in old Scotland said it back at the time of the American Revolution.I don’t hear it so much round here on the West Coast because were Highland Scots, but the Lowland Scots this saying is used , when anyone brings up religion, criminality etc simply,to be argumentive. Myself I have worked in a few different countries, lived and worked for 6 months up the Muslim end of Paris where the recent massacre was, Marie De Clichy and St Denis.I had no bother, made and worked with Muslim friends. In all that I have always abided by “when in Rome do as the Roman`s do” to that end I have ate horse, frogs legs, snails gone to churches of all different denomination although I wasn’t allowed into the Muslim Mosque but was permitted to stay outside it, and permitted to listen and to think. Today I am thinking , if you take the religious belief in God we y need to ask ,who are the ones that are playing God,and want to be better than God,and whatever the motive is it aint religion,that’s just being used as a divde and rule tool,tried,tested, and proven to work everytime on everyman.What right do they have to un-do Gods work of creating humans through the omniscient intelligence of God who opened the way for it to happen,for homo-sapiens to be created.We are led by religion to believe we have no choice in being born,that is Gods work,so who would dare to destroy Gods work by vaccination, substances that were never, ever, intended to be pumped into the body, doesn’t matter what the science is, supporting and the pseudo explanations, that are given by very clever people,it was never Gods intention to create humans for vaccination sacrifice.It was intended that we only progress as humans and to share our superiority with the fish, birds, and mother nature.
If you know Robert Burns at all,
In what near enough is his most meaningful poem,to me .

“For A’ That.” It ends with these famous verses:

Is there for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a’ that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that;
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.
…………..
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, and a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That man to man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be, for a’ that.

History skewed.
Most Scots coming in on those boats; married Cherokee women - by the turn of the 1800s; little known fact - most people were of mixed blood, but had taken on the traditions of the Ginger People.

In the book "Trail of Tears" The Cherokee would accept almost anyone to be Cherokee, if they wanted to be and had some ancestry. They patrolled their borders to protect encroachment of their land, and did not mind if their women married white men.

But more and more of the Cherokee woman chose to follow the traditions of their husbands and left the Cherokee lands.

Fewer and fewer were left sitting on some really good land.
So they lost their home land and basically their way of life, and traditions.

It is not a rare tale of history that cultures come flashing into being and are snuffed out. Happens a lot, and that is what is in the back of all of our minds. It is in the back of my mind.

I don't guess we have to worry if majority Christian nation that is basically traditionally European turns Muslim - cause we only got 15 years and then half of us all have autism. - Oh good gosh. You know what - if the Appalachian mountains with the typhoid vaccine given to everyone of the school kids every other year or every year - could be a sterling example of what happens if the vast majority are vaccine injured ; thus living in provety, suffering from mental illness, or/ and immune problems -- oh and drug problems -- I will warn you all - they take their religion really - really serious.

Example: There was bad blood between Methodist and the Baptist --The main argument that could lead to splitting of families and friendships was. If Once saved are you always saved; one side said no, and the other said if you really were saved in the first place; you would not be doing stuff to get yourself unsaved.

That was a major - making people mad.

And if you think that is silly - what about that Irish Protestant - Catholic stuff - that had Belfast in rubble. Think of all the vaccine trails and dead babies from the orphanage buried in septic tanks in Ireland.

Which I do wonder if some of this Muslim radicalism might be coming from mental illness - induced vaccine injuries. After all guys - there is a rapid and sharp rise right now of diabetes in Saudi Arabia - which is very much tied in with this auto immune/ autism stuff.

So let us mingle two different religions during this next 15 years -- tissue paper to a fire for both sides as is - this is the second Muslim young man that I know in the last year that has a mental illness and doing weird religious violence.

Hera,
I clicked on the first link I sent you and was disappointed that it was only to one oral quiz, not all of them. If you go to the link with the Extra Grammar, Readings, etc., the oral quizzes link is there, but you have to get an account with Cambridge to download them. It's free, but they've changed the way they do it several times in the last few years. If you need them, I could scan and send them to you by email. I really like them as a succinct plan of what you're working on.

@david m burd "What the heck happened to your British culture that it DEPENDS on Muslim medical personnel? "

Well it's nothing new in the UK. Our academic and medical community has always encouraged persons from other parts of the world to come here to study, particularly from Commonwealth countries. Their skills are very welcome. Of course, the UK also exports British doctors, nurses and scientists, some to the US.

Mr Burd's 'take' on US immigration history is horribly skewed. The Scottish Highland clearances, saw many from the North and Hebridean Islands, turned out of their crofts by landowners who wanted the land for sheep. Boats to the US were often the only option left to them, but on my visits to the US and Canada, I found many US and Canadian citizens who were fiercely proud of their Scottish ancestry. ( Let's not talk about Mr Trump's Mother or President Obama's Father).

Hera,
Here's several things related to the Cambridge Connect ESL series. We finished them, but now that my daughter is in formal language therapy, I'm asking that the sequence be followed to increase her ability to use the structures gradually.

It's a more complicated group of resources than I wish it were. There are four levels, we used the second edition, each level has a textbook, workbook, audio CDs, all sold separately, I got them all on Amazon, plus there are free worksheets to print out from their teacher's site with two series, A and B, of extra grammar sheets, three for each chapter in both series, plus A and B extra reading worksheets, plus quizzes and tests. I'm providing the link to the oral quizzes which assess ability to use the structures in each unit of four lessons.. Also the link to the Arcade online activities for each chapter. It's extremely well done, gradual, attractive, and engaging. And when you finish the Connect series there are many more series to choose from. We're backtracking and doing Interchange, which has funny videos for each chapter, there was a video about a girl flying to Brazil for a vacation, and she hugged her roommate good-bye, went out the door and then came right back in. My passport! Where's my passport? Is it on the desk? Under the sofa? Next to the T.V.? There it is! In the wastepaper basket! OK, bye! Then right back in. Oh no, where's my ticket? My daughter laughed and laughed, she understood what they were saying and why it was funny. I'm very impressed with all those that I've seen.

You say: "Our hospitals would not function without doctors and surgeons from the Muslim community."

That's quite a statement, and tells a huge tale. What the heck happened to your British culture that it DEPENDS on Muslim medical personnel? What terribly wrong turn have you Brits done to not have your own English generations be skilled and capable to tend to your own British citizens' health?! (Excepting the idiocy of vaccines of course).

What you have said is exactly why many of us Americans are leery of sliding further into the Welfare Trap (those who won't work, even tho they are capable), and leeching off of those who do work. And, to keep going down the same path that the UK has taken.

Those who first fled to America back in the 1610 from your Isles quickly realized their "commune style" did not work because of slackers, and it quickly changed to "If you don't work, you don't eat."

cheers, and enjoy your pint of Watney's at your local pub -- I did a long time ago.

Cia Parker;
Yes, I read that article too. It seems a good one. I suppose it is a bit like Westboro Baptist Church; Christians who disagree with their positions have an obligation to say so. Similarly, liberal Muslims need to do the same thing.
Respectful sympathy and grief for all who were injured and lost their lives.

It does seem from some of the articles that it is possible one of the motivations of the shooting was anti gay hatred, possibly fueled by the fact that it appears likely that the shooter was himself gay but trying to hide it.

On a different and kind of off topic note; Cia is there any chance you could give a link to the ESL program you used with your child with speech apraxia? I am looking for something to help my son with his language.

A muhajideen killed a Paris policeman and his wife by stabbing them in their home yesterday. This has been happening for fourteen hundred years, starting way before the rise of the Western powers or the pervasiveness of chemicals in the environment. The goal for the last fourteen hundred years has been to create an Islamic system of government, the sharia, in every land in the world. By killing several million, they were able to establish an Islamic government in all the areas which are now Muslim countries. Stealth jihad is a new tactic currently being used in tandem with violent jihad. It doesn't matter if it takes centuries to complete the task, they believe they are fil sabil Allah, on the path of Allah, and will be rewarded by him for their efforts. Dying while waging jihad is the only guaranteed way for a Muslim male to attain Paradise, so the certainty of dying in the attempt is not a deterrent. Of course most Muslims living outside the Muslim world live quietly, without bothering anyone. But it's at least 10% who support extremist Islam. I think we owe it to our citizens and our way of life to think about what we should do to protect them.

When a mass killing happen, I wonder if the investigators consider the possibility that something in the killer's past environment could have caused the negative mental state that triggered the killing. We can name a number of factors as possibilities: lead, mercury or arsenic poisoning, gluten, glyphosate and other pesticides, and of course vaccines. I am sure we can name others.

The police claim they gather all the evidence and follow the evidence where ever it leads them. They don't decide before hand what the outcome is. If this is true, then we can expect them to analysis the body (dead or alive) for all possible environmental toxins (legal or illegal) that could be a possible cause. I assume the body is tested for illegal drugs, but I doubt they test for heavy metal, anti-bodies or pesticides. They should.

The testing of one body may not provide conclusive evidence, but if done many times we may be able to see a trend in the data that would be meaningful.

Do police analysis the body of killers for legal environmental toxins? I would appreciate hearing insight anyone has on this.

Just one Nut Psychos coming out day and he found a reason in his twisted warped mind endorsed by his father- if you believe the papers. No doubt a whole nation will loose some more of its rights a bit more along with rights to refuse vaccines, Obama blames the guns AGAIN...in the same mode as parents of vaccine damaged kids are blamed, no science whatsoever just agenda. If people think that Muslim countries who endorse executing gays have a place in the modern age, think again.We are here, this is what we do, this is what we have, abide or you don't get in,never mind building temples for them to worship fxxk that. The ones that have been here for the past 80 years or so and fit in, I have no problem with and did know a man and wife couple who we got on with very well with until they moved.In the same breath the modern age should stop invading and trying to steal oil at any given chance and leave them to do what suits them wherever they are.Time for change America just the numpty`s you elect that you have to be careful of, they are the psychos that facilitate psychos from Orlando etc.

I'm with John too. Generalisations breed intolerance, which in turn breeds violence. In Scotland we have a well integrated Islamic community, going back generations. They are almost without exception, hard working law abiding persons. Their children were a joy to teach, since their parents greatly value education. Our hospitals would not function without doctors and surgeons from the Muslim community.

Yes we get 'wrong uns' from all sections of society, and it's very worrying to see vulnerable young persons being influenced and radicalised via the internet. In the UK, it's not just Muslims becoming dangerously influenced by the so called 'Islamic State'. There were plenty of previous warnings about Omar Mateen's violent tendencies and instability, yet he had no difficulties getting hold of guns in the US.

My family owns Browning, Winchester, Remington etc, - various 30 cal rifles that are functionally no different than the AR15, afaik. They just don't have that "sexy" look (I only use that term somewhat sarcastically as that's how I've heard certain gun lobbyists describe the AR15 in the midst of recent similar tragedies). I don't know what the solution is, God knows we all have to do better at collaborating, but I do agree that using the weapon of choice or the way it looks as a political football is not the answer. This guy could have walked in with one of my rifles, or a couple of pipe bombs for that matter, and created carnage. This wasn't any more or any less horrible because the gun has the "assault" label; the unthinkable is that an individual could be so messed up and / or so blackhearted that he would want to slaughter innocent people. Given his history he should not have had access to any weapons. The "why" and "how" questions are much more important than "what", IMHO. I apologize if my comment seems insensitive to anyone.

I'm with John. Given that we're fighting the medical establishment, the mass media, the pharmaceutical industry, the public health bureaucracy, the Gates Foundation, and Jimmy Kimmel, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to pick a fight with a billion Muslims. You know, choosing your battles and all that.

And remember, any repressive measures that the government uses against radical Muslims, they'll use against us first. I think we'll be hearing a lot about the necessity of censoring the Internet -- after all, we can't allow it to be used as a recruitment tool for dangerous ideologies, can we?

It should be possible to respect the religious aspect of Islam, but not the supremacist, political side. I have wished Muslims Eid Mubarak. I talked with my Iranian friend last week about making hajj and staying at a nice hotel. I had thought that everyone stayed in the tent cities as a gesture of equality and humility, but learned that most people who can afford it stay in hotels. She said her relatives had gone in a caravan, which I think just means group, to stay at a nice hotel in Mecca. I said I had read that it cost $10,000 with one company, and we talked about how many days it took and how many days for Medina if you chose to make that side trip. I learned from my Zambian friend that the prayer beads I had read about were used to count the 33 times each to say the phrases of the sunnah prayers before and/or after the regular prayers. I asked her if it were not burdensome for her father to walk to the mosque five times a day: she said he usually just stayed there between the third and fourth prayers and talked with other men there in between about all the problems of their everyday lives, and she talked about the solace and camaraderie. I said that I had learned about the prostrate prayer position being called sujood, and realized that the word masjid (mosque) had the first syllable ma- to designate a place, the place where you do sujood. She said when she was growing up there were no translations of the Muslim holy texts into her language, an Indian language, so she had to learn Urdu so she could read Urdu translations of them. I thought all of that was very interesting.

I am extremely interested in another culture, another way of life, and respectful up to the point where the customs and beliefs hurt others. But at that point we all need to talk about it, and try to enlist their help in reforming Islam.

Linda, we all need to recognize the problem, warn people about the dangers, and, again, talk together about the points on which we clash. In some countries women are already warned by the police not to go out alone, and not to wear revealing clothing, or they will be in danger. Cartoonists and novelists have to decide how far they are willing to go, but most of us do not think they should have to live in fear if they use sarcasm or irony to comment on some aspect of Islam. Some places have forbidden pig figurines on desks or Christmas cards displayed at offices. Some universities have closed their prayer areas when they were appropriated by one group, which then didn't permit others to use the space. School children are being taught a sanitized version of history by textbooks which must be approved by a Muslim committee, which omit the violent conquests of the first centuries of Islam. Buses in London are no longer going to be able to mount advertisements of beautiful, scantily clad women. Would we think it was all right to live under the sharia if the majority were to vote for it? These are all questions we must share our opinions on, and think a lot about to determine what our values are and how far we would go to protect them, or whether we don't think it would be that bad to let our countries become Islamic.

These attacks would not have happened fifty years ago, so we need to talk about what has changed, and what we could do to present the best Western values as a good and attractive alternative view of the world. I believe that Western religions would have a valuable part to play in offering spiritual disciplines specifying that love for God and others shown in kindness, helpfulness, and compassion is also a way to transcend this world and gain the next, but without violence. This is now four deadly attacks in less than a year, many more if you include the many countries outside of Europe and the US. Many suggestions have been made about what we can do about it, and we need to consider them and look for ways to deal with the situation. But it's absolutely necessary to talk about it, and it would not be respectful to leave Muslims resident in our countries out of the conversation. I don't think leaving them alone and hoping for the best is going to be the answer, as it has not been in the past.

david m burd: I have seen photographs of gravestones of fallen Muslim soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery. Our nation has had Muslim citizens for a very long time. I can't help but think that all the mass shootings we've seen over the past couple of decades, the scale and frequency of which are historically unprecedented, are related to pharmaceutical, vaccine, and chemical poisoning. This is something new and frightening,

Linda,
it probably would not have made any difference. Talking once about it and then letting it be is definitely not going to make much of a dent, especially nowadays where people don't see the need for any face-to-face interaction. That type of activity is not practiced by children. I have not had children in school since 1986, but the interaction nowadays consists of texting. And when there is hurtful stuff texted, it's called bullying. No, darling you can't do that. It's nasty. Anything in writing is nasty. Face-to-face always works a little better if you have been taught over all your school life and you get better at it the more you do it. Kids don't do it. Are too many of them going autistic on us. I think they are. But many of them just don't have the experience it takes to get into a civilized conversation that is also not holding back and that actually tells it like it is.

Thanks. Yes, people love vaccines because they make them feel safe, but increasingly they are having the opposite effect - and good heavens we even have a war on disease. I fear being engaged in another kind of safety rhetoric which could also make our lives more dangerous and less pleasant.

I am not saying there isn't a problem with militant Islam: there is always a problem with militant almost anything. But I am also saying you have to be careful what you say about people, Muslims included. I don't want to be rude about anyone's religion. If you attack people for who they are it not only makes them fearful, it makes them angry. The young guy who jokes with me everyday and calls me uncle reminds me I belong to a community and I don't want it taken apart by rhetoric. Je ne suis pas Charlie. Leave people alone and most likely they will leave you alone too.

John Stone: Yes, serious topics and Nations' cultures may be "slippery slope(s)" as you say. But, might you consider that the British Isles can keep keep sliding down that slippery slope and become an Islamic nation; or just as bad in my view, adopt Shariah Law to be practiced by your neighbors you so appreciate.

It's up to you and your fellow Brits --- as for me, I have visited countless U.S. War Memorial Graveyards, and only very recently have I come across a very few grave markers (and/or names) that have any relationship to the muslim religion, none before WWII. If marked at all, they are Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. And I have can't recall ever seeing a "muslim name" on any graves.

Nevertheless you are a fantastic fighter to stop the Vaccine Madness, THANK YOU.

Over the weekend, before the Orlando tragedy, I was thinking with the success of Vaxxed bringing to light the crimes of the American CDC, that it was just about time for the gov't to stage some kind of major distraction. I thought they wouldn't try another measles outbreak - that would backfire. I think the Zika panic they tried to create fell short. But I figured they'd try something to get the public's and the now engaged media focus off of William Thompson and the connection between vaccines and autism that the CDC hid for more than a decade - also as Vaxxed goes international.

Then the mass shooting in Orlando with immediate connections to terrorism - immediate proof that it is ISIS - all over the airwaves. Maybe it is exactly what it is reported to be. But, our government is losing control over the vaccine lie and it is coming to light that our government has poisoned it's own citizens with vaccines and has been complicit in poisoning the world's citizens with vaccines. Do those known criminals who poison children have the ability, resources and motive to pull off a false flag operation in Orlando in an attempt to change the conversation and take the focus off of their crimes? For those who say, how dare I suggest that our government would kill 50 innocent people. How many SIDS deaths per day? How many children diagnosed autistic each day? How many inside the CDC and Congress that know damn well children are being harmed and killed and have not called Thompson to testify and are pushing for federal vaccine mandates?

Cia,
If this was a ISIS terrorist attack, exactly how would our talking about it beforehand have changed the outcome?

Freedom of speech has not been the country's strong suit recently. It's built into the school system to not say what you mean. Recently there was an article in Le Monde about the fact that people in Palo Alto don't say no. That's an interesting concept, not being able to say no. But in the name of "warm fuzzies" and "cold pricklies" (does anyone remember those days?) free speech has been taken out of school kids' vocabulary. Now that those children are grown-ups, the ability to discern between what is acceptable and what is not has become hazy to possibly almost invisible. Who even talks with their neighbors anymore? There is a lot of stored anger in people and it festers and it doesn't allow people to get to a maybe even heated dialog. People have to get things off their chests. Meanwhile the toxic environment adds to the lunacy. Where does it end? What part of "assault" rifle don't people get?

The weapons used in these massacres ARE NOT military weapons that actually fire repeatedly with one squeeze of the trigger when the soldier so desires.

I have had rifles for 60 years that fire every time I pull the trigger; BUT, this is NOT the same as automatic fire (as in military arms).

It is completely bullcrap and propaganda for such as Obama and Clinton et al. to cite "automatic military style weapons that are employed in the San Bernadino and Orlando and Sandy Hook horrors.

The rifles/weapons these mass murderers used are EXACTLY the same as 30 million American hunters and home owners and hobbyists have had forever, and to protect our homes and families. They ARE NOT military automatic-fire weapons, as you seem to think.

Hopefully you have received this knowledge, and understand we Americans have a RIGHT to arms to protect ourselves.

If you say how horrible it is when terrorists promoting a certain ideology murder people, what sort of person would get angry and kill you for saying it? Or shun you, or any other punishment for speaking the truth. Should the peaceful Muslim not say "I agree with you, it IS horrible, and I will stand with you to try to stop such things from happening in whatever way I can"? If he does not feel this way and, in fact, feels no solidarity with his fellows in his new homeland, feels no sympathy for women who are raped for leaving home in a short skirt, for cartoonists engaging in satire, for gays celebrating Latino night at a club, has he really made the right choice in moving to a Western country? Gabriel's point was, in part, that the peaceful majority knows better than anyone what will happen to them if they protest such actions, and so, for the most part, they say nothing in the face of terror. I do not judge them, but feel sorry for their fearfulness, their inability to take advantage of Western freedoms. But they cannot expect me to remain silent in the face of the abuses carried out by their coreligionists.

Is it correct to say, well, no matter how many thousands are killed or otherwise abused by the same ideology and similar terrorists, that it isn't really a big deal, that you quite understand that some are bound to murder others if they were brought up to oppress or kill women, Jews, gays, other religions and national or ethnic groups, and apostates who leave the Muslim religion? It IS a big deal, and everyone living in a Western country must stand up for our Enlightenment values and our commitment to democracy and human rights (which are often antithetical, but both precious, and we must constantly seek a just balance between them).

An old boyfriend asked me how my Muslim friends react when I talk about this with them. I said that it would be insulting to them if I were to try to avoid talking about it with them: they are civilized adults and have the ethical obligation to join with me in talking about this and seeking possible solutions. Respect for myself, for them, and for my civilization demand that I not try to coddle them, but we must look at the truth of what is happening together.

I just read House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger. In it he mentions that while Bush's Florida margin of victory over Gore was 537 votes, 55000 Muslims in the crucial state of Florida voted and 88% of them voted for Bush. That's...a lot more than 537. No doubt this lesson has been taken to heart by Democratic politicians. And who can blame them?

The peaceful majority are not irrelevant: I couldn't think of a more foolish statement. Once you antagonise people who are good citizens and neighbours - decide perhaps you can't live with them - it becomes a very slippery slope indeed.

Several folks here have mentioned the "Newtown, Ct." shooting, and Adam Lanza. Given what we've been told in the media, **YES**, psych drugs were a part of that mess. Not that the media ever really tells the whole truth there.... Especially in young people, so called "SSRI's" - Prozac, Zoloft, etc., - **DO** cause violent thoughts and behavior in some users. The FDA has mandated various "black box" warnings starting in the 1990's. Obviously, not every child or person who gets vaxxed gets autism, and not every person taking so-called "anti-depressants" commits suicide or homicide. ***BUT***.... too many DO.... The media does not talk about these facts, and nobody seems willing to force the media to address these issues. (BTW, why is it easier to find solid evidence online, that show the "Sandy Hook" shooting was a drill, and "faked"?.... Look on Google/images for "Craft International", and see the compelling evidence that even the so-called "Boston Marathon Bombing" was in fact a *STAGED* event, run by the same company founded by the "American Sniper", Chris Kyle.... Not to get all "paranoid conspiracy", **BUT**....)....????....
(c)2016, Tom Clancy, Jr., *NON-fiction

While it's important not to attack those Muslims who are innocent of any wrongdoing, I don't see any evidence of that having happened in either Europe or here in recent years. Peaceful Muslims are as much at risk in many instances in these attacks as non-Muslims. But as Brigitte Gabrielle famously said, The peaceful majority is irrelevant. The danger for all of us is so great that it is imperative that we discuss it as not just as an individual city, state, or country, but as a world. There is an Islamic imperative, believed to be Allah's will as interpreted by fourteen hundred years of Islamic jurisprudence and interpretation and based in its foundational texts, to submit the entire world to Islamic law, by killing, conversion, or submission to dhimmi, semi-slave status and paying the high jizya tax. Isis is now forcing the few Christians left in Iraq and Syria to pay the jizya tax, revived by them for the first time in the past century, under conditions of humiliation (mandated).

It is Islam as a political ideology that is dangerous: no one would have any problem at all with it if it were only a religious practice based on its five pillars, with no abuse of human rights. But jihad, whether violent or non-violent, has always been considered the sixth pillar of Islam, and it is political in nature. There is no way to talk about the violence and its underpinnings without talking about Islam itself, and it is so crucial to our self-defense that we do so, and Muslims of good will must understand that and be as concerned about it as we are. I know that the Muslim friends I mentioned talking to this past week are as shocked by the violence as anyone, and would never condone or sympathize with it. No one is targeting them nor has ever targeted them in any way, and everyone who knows them respects and likes them.

This a plea for certain care. Unlike most of the people writing on this blog I meet Muslims every day. People who are good neighbours, good officials, good citizens and pleasant to trade with. As I observed in an earlier comment the new mayor of London is a Muslim, Londoners reckoned he was Londoner too, and were pleased to vote for him. If we talk about everything that falls under Islam as being the same sort of thing we will be profoundly wrong and make enemies of people who might just as easily be our friends. Of course there are going to be idiots but it doesn't help if idiots have easy access to firearms or may well be dosing on SSRIs. America has had a lot of this sort of thing unfortunately without any Muslim connection.

I think the problem has been from avoiding discussion of the problem in the past, not that what happened yesterday has been invented or manipulated by those promoting an agenda. It would be like denying that all the children damaged by vaccines were really damaged, but that we parents are making it up because we hate healthy (vaxxed) children, and only want to deprive them of life-saving vaccines hoping that they'll die, just because our own are injured. And shills have said that. Should we go along with that? Milo, a really sharp, cute gay Brit who writes for Breitbart, asks why the left put Islam at the top of the victim pyramid when it prescribes killing or oppressing everyone else on the pyramid. We need to talk about this. Why indeed?

Adnani, a spokesman for Isis, gave a speech last week calling on Muslims to observe Ramadan by killing infidel non-Muslims, and in the last week there have been 60 jihad attacks around the world with 472 killed at last count. This is not the fault of the West, although you could make the argument, as Milo does, that it has been enabled by the West. No one is making up the dead bodies on the ground in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and Orlando.

You know how Anne points out daily the shamefully poor reporting on what we know about? Why should we believe the reporting about this event? I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying, just as people are largely kept in the dark about vaccines, we are being kept in the dark about attacks like this. When they tell us about the shooter, and about anything else, we must keep in mind how they report about vaccines. I don't think we are being told the whole story. If we are, I'd be very surprised.

Actually, they do stop quite a few of them. For example, Canada, with about 1/10 the population of the US, had 172 gun-related homicides in 2012, compared with 8,813 in the US. And this US number does not include gun deaths from accidental shootings, defensive use, home invasions, and police incidents.

In Canada, military-grade assault weapons are prohibited, and handguns are restricted. That doesn't mean no-one can get their hands on these weapons – especially given our long border with the US — but it is significantly more difficult.

And largely as a result of that long porous border, Canada's rate itself is quite high compared with that of European countries such as the UK.

Cait,
I told my friend that last night, how could the killer walk in with an assault weapon, a pistol, and apparently a bomb as well? Where was the bouncer? There was an on-duty policeman at the site who is said to have immediately engaged the killer. So what happened? Fifty dead, fifty-four wounded when I saw the most recent count last night. How is that possible? My friend also said that Obama had said the problem was guns. But California had strict gun control laws, I think Orlando does too, but criminals can get the weapons they need illegally. My father NEVER left home without a concealed pistol, which he fortunately never used nor had any need to use it. He had worked for the government and had gotten sharpshooter awards. I guarantee you that if he had been at the gay nightclub at two in the morning (sorry, the image made me laugh), he would have defended the defenseless and this would not now be in the news.

Linda,
Yes, the Internet is a major recruitment and training tool for radical Islam. It is not possible to shut down all the sites commending and promoting violence for the cause. But many social media sites are now taking down those that mention radical Islam as being a problem. Pamela Geller had a Facebook group which has been in existence for six years shut down yesterday. How does it help the situation to try to keep people in ignorance of the facts? It is extremely parallel to the pro-vaccine thought control of all the legislative, medical, education, and media institutions. The First Amendment depends on people recognizing the value of allowing all opinions to be expressed, and relying on decent people being capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Thank you, Mark. I agree. I just spoke with an Iranian friend last night, she didn't know any of the details of the Orlando massacre and I spent half an hour telling her. Her daughter has been studying translation in Brussels this past year, and I sent her the advisories from the US, Canadian, and Australian governments last week telling their citizens to avoid going to Europe at this time. Australia was the most blunt, saying that if you're thinking about going to Belgium, to reconsider your need to go there. My friend prevailed upon her daughter to come straight home in a few weeks, to not travel around seeing the classic tourist attractions of Europe, which are all on high alert. I talked with another friend last week asking her about the sunnah prayers which are part of the mandated salah prayers, and she described her father in Zambia's daily practice. He was a good, devout, and peaceful man, with many daughters who became doctors and lawyers. My friend's son just graduated from Columbia College and is traveling around in Europe now. We are all praying for the safe return of both of the young people, but we are afraid.

I am by no means anti-Muslim, but the rise in the last few decades of militant Islam is not an aberration, it is Islamic, it is in opposition to democracy and the support of human rights, including for women, gays, and non-Muslims, and it's a problem which threatens us all. I don't know the solution.

One could also look at constitutional freedoms, that are being siphoned away by government and media in recent decades, as very real and practical protections for people. Freedom to decide whether to have risky vaccine cocktails injected into you and your children and freedom of good people to protect themselves from murderers. The best protection from a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Fort Hood in Texas is a prime example of this. Their gun laws are freer than most states EXCEPT at the Fort Hood military base, which doesn't allow the people there to carry guns. And that's the place in Texas of two mass shootings. The media doesn't tend to show the stories of good guys stopping shooters before the situation became worse. Gun control laws don't stop bad guys with guns; only good guys with guns. In Adam Lanza's situation, the mother should have known better than to have guns in the house and to teach him how to use them, on top of it!! She knew he had major mental problems.

Thank you Maureen and Cait. I take nothing on face value anymore. I always wonder what the real story is and why. As part of this morning's reporting, I heard that it was the internet that has been training terrorists. The internet is a big part of the problem. And what will be done about that? Scary times.

Of course the killer was mentally unstable, and maybe radical Islam was the pretext for his rampage. But how can someone just walk into a nightclub with an assault rifle? How can it be possible for ANYONE to legally purchase what is essentially a military weapon?

I'm so glad you posted this, Kim. A tragic event happens and immediately it becomes political fodder to promote the dangers of "radical Islamic Terror" in this country. This happens long before there is any attempt to siphon out any possible mental, biological illness in the culprit of the crime. Not only will government officials ignore any pharmaceutical link to the crime, but they pounce upon the event to inflame this population against a massive group of individuals and at the same time, to put the almighty fear factor in public minds. And fear calculates into more government control of every aspect of our society. Not so different from our vaccine story.